Allen Ginsberger died today. So I'd like to tell you a little about him. Probably even in Germany you've heard about him, is that right? Do you know him? Yeah? Yeah. Philip called me, Waylon, a few days ago, I guess just when Sashin was starting, and told me that Alan had liver cancer and was from in the hospital and that the doctors gave him four or five months to live.

[01:03]

But Phillip said that, Alan said that the way he felt it wasn't four or five months, maybe one or two months. He actually, according to Philip, wrote and wailed away in the first week and wrote a whole book in the first week in the hospital. I don't know. I presume of poems. I don't know. In any case, so then Earl, my old friend, who's been here, who I was in the merchant ring with in the 50s, and who was working on ships. And we were both friends of Alan's. So he called me to tell me that Alan had died this morning. And then during the day, Virginia called me. I called Gary Snyder. Anyway, various people are trying to communicate about it. I guess Thursday, so I called Philip.

[02:08]

Philip had also just heard. One girl called me. I called Philip. And I guess he had a stroke Thursday. He got out of the hospital because they couldn't do anything more for him. He got out of the hospital and then had a stroke and went back in and then died at 2.40 this morning. So tomorrow morning I'd like to put his name on the altar and do a service for him. But he was, you know, he was, I don't know, I can't, say he was a close friend, but he was kind of a close friend, but he was definitely a karmic friend for me. And we had quite a long association. And in the 70s, I used to see him quite often. When he'd come to San Francisco, he'd call me and several times he wanted me to meet his father, Louis Ginsburg, his stepmother, father's companion. So I'd go out to dinner with them and then usually go to a reading

[03:12]

and hang out with him and I traveled with him a number of times in California and on the east coast sometimes I'd go to several poetry readings with him and we'd ride along in a car and he was great you know he couldn't sing worse than them but he would sing the heart sutra and sing poems and he had a little one stringed instrument and he'd sit in the car and we'd be riding along and he'd be singing do you know this thing of Blake's and he'd play and sing like It was great, full of energy. When he was fairly young, I think in the 50s sometimes, I think he went to quite an important for him pilgrimage to Mexico. And he was in Guanajuato where Keijo, Rocio and I were this summer, summer, fall, summer, I don't know. And there's pictures of his, I guess he took of the mummies, Guanajuato, which we didn't see. I didn't see.

[04:15]

Did you go to see them? I've seen them. You've seen them before? I thought it would be too touristy, so I didn't want to mix tourism and mummies. But in any case... If you live in Guanajuato, I guess still today, if you're born in Guanajuato, you can be mummified instead of cremated, I was told. But if you just move there, like if I move there now, no, I couldn't be mummified. Anyway... So Alan was a saintly person. I don't know, and Virginia just called me, my wife, ex-wife, telling me how much she loved Alan and didn't know I'd left a message for her already about him. Everyone, even people who didn't really like his lifestyle and stuff,

[05:16]

You know, in his biography, the guy who wrote his biography says he just was inundated by people who kept saying what a wonderful person Alan was. Russell remembers when he came to Santa Fe. Yeah. Anyway... The first time I really made, I kind of recognized Alan was, I don't know when it was, but sometime in the late 50s, mid 50s, I don't know. I was in New York and I was in the Lower East Side. And I was in a phone booth in a drugstore. And you know, a wooden phone booth with glass doors. And Alan came in with, I think, Peter Orlowski.

[06:22]

Peter, who he describes in a wonderful poem, which the first lines are, I'm happy, Kerouac. You're madman Alan's. finally found, finally made it. He's found a new young cat. My imagination of an eternal boy, handsome, walks the streets of San Francisco, meets me in cafeterias and loves me. And that was Peter. much of his later years he had to take care of Peter used to show up sometimes in San Francisco really strung out and this and that but anyway Peter was and Julius Julius had a really crazy brother anyway so I'm in this phone booth and I see

[07:34]

Alan and Peter come in to the drugstore. And I think at that time I didn't really know him. And I saw this person walk in and it was interesting. He came into the drugstore and he was really there. But he was really there in the drugstore, but he was actually on the planet. It just happened to be a drugstore. I don't know if you know what I mean. It just happened to be a drugstore, but he was definitely there on the planet, and he and his friend brought a world with them. And I was looking out, you know, I was just... Maybe I was 20 or 19 or 21 or something, and I was looking out the window of the phone booth. When I saw him walk in, just the way they were, I thought to myself, I was of course at that age trying to decide what to do.

[08:47]

I'd walked out of college because I didn't want a degree. I didn't want to start the world with a degree. And so anyway, I was wondering, what should I do? Because my relatives were all saying, you are nuts. And so I'm looking at this guy and his friend and I thought to myself, this is the world I'm going to live in. And I almost... got out of the phone booth and went over to Alan and said, you know, I don't know you, but this is the world. I thought, yeah, I can't say that. I mean, this is conversation for poetry and lovemaking and things like that. You can't say that. So I just stayed in the phone booth and I thought to myself, well, I don't have to tell him this. I just have to help him create this world."

[09:53]

So in a way there was a recognition and a vow at that time that I would help Alan create this world, which I felt would be more compatible. If you grew up in America in the 50s, in American high schools, almost anything was better. but anyway I had this recognition and then later we became rather sort of moderately good friends and when I started Tassajara you know I think I've told you some of you with this experience of looking at this place discovering it by accident driving camping with Virginia and I'm thinking that such an isolated piece of land existed in the middle of a national forest. I didn't know that private land existed in the middle of 350,000 acres of wilderness. So when I left with...

[11:01]

He got out of the car, and I think I told you why I told you. It seems to me I told you this recently. He was quite excited walking. Walking beside the car, I had to drive real slowly. And I've never seen him so excited. So we went... We decided to get the land, to try to buy it, We had nothing to lose. I mean, the Zen Center had a budget of total savings of $1,000, I think, and we had $6,000 a year, roughly, income that we had to support Sukhya. And I remember we had a meeting and everyone said, but we can't afford it. How can we do it? We only have $1,000. And I said, what have we got to lose? Only $1,000. Let's go ahead. So we went ahead. But I did all this, got the brochure out while Suzuki Roshi was in Japan.

[12:16]

And he didn't know I was going to be so quick. So he came back. He said, oh my gosh. He said, are we sure this is going to work? If this doesn't work, I'm finished in Japan, he told me. You cannot fail in Japan. That's simply it. You cannot fail in Japan. I mean, for example, if you go to a Japanese monastery, I remember somebody went to Myoshinji. He said he was going to stay six months. He stayed three months. Ten years, they wouldn't accept another foreigner. I mean, if you said you're going to stay two and a half months, they'd stay three. Heck, they'd have foreigners once a year. But you do not fail in Japan. So I thought, well, I've got to have a backup then. So some friends of mine had offered me some land in the Sierra, but I couldn't raise money for land which was a backup.

[13:20]

I got my wife's family, I had to kind of have a confrontation with them at the dining room table to give us the money for our portion. And they were really quite suspicious of their daughter. I don't know why I'm telling you all this stuff. Their daughter marrying a person who walked out of college, was working in a warehouse, and preferred to read than to do anything else. And so they were pretty suspicious. So they were, if she was going to inherit anything, it wasn't coming toward us. Anyway, so we talked them into helping us buy this land. But that was only one third or one fourth of it. So I turned to Alan Ginsberg and to Gary. And Alan and Gary both came in to help us start this. And this was going to be So Alan built a house there, and I built a house there, and Gary Snyder built a house there.

[14:28]

But we didn't do it until Tassajara was secure. So once we were sure we were going to be able to keep Tassajara and started the first practice periods, then Gary came back from Japan. I moved to Japan, actually took his house. And he came back from Japan and built a house on this land. And then Alan built a house. And now Gary owns Alan's house and my house. because Alan didn't end up spending much time there, and I, Tassar and San Francisco and so forth, consumed all my time. So I used to go up there every summer for some weeks, but it's a wonderful little place. And I built there with Lenny's help. Lenny was studying with a carpenter in Japan. Well, I was talking with a carpenter who was building a temple for someone, Kobori Roshi, who was tearing down an old building and gave it to me.

[15:31]

So we rebuilt it in the Sierra. So there's a Japanese building there. We rebuilt. It's a nice little building. So Alan, from this phone booth, where I saw him. Strangely enough, that's why I say I have a karmic relationship with him. When I needed help to make this next step of Tassajara and have a backup, it's Alan who immediately came in and bought a third of the land. And Gary. And over the years he's particularly helped Philip, supported Philip. The two of us have tried to make it possible for Philip to live just writing and practicing Buddhism.

[16:44]

Anyway, he was 70, 10 years, 71. He's 10 years older than I am. So anyway, he has died. Now, what I was trying to say yesterday, and I don't know if I made it clear, can be clear, is that if you can't know the face of Mount Lu, if you can only know your life backwards, but you have to live it forwards,

[17:52]

And if when you look in the mirror you see your biology, which maybe doctors know about, and you see your psychology, the kind of person you are perhaps, Therapists can know about, but there's also that which sees which can't be seen. What's really seeing is not your eyes and your face and so forth. What's really seeing can't be seen. And that's what we're trying to know, that which cannot be seen. the shore which lives shorelessly, or the lake floor which lives floorlessly. It's in short, how does the eye see the eye? How do you see your life as... This poem of Mount Lou

[19:04]

If you cannot, from one view, a single peak, from another an entire range, near, far, high, low, all its aspects are different. If you cannot know the face of Mount Lou, it's because you're in the midst of it. maybe it's like the fifth and sixth and seventh dimensions, which you can know mathematically and make it easier, as I understand, to explain reality. Reality gets simpler at higher dimensions, but they can't be known except like mathematically. And the higher dimensions of our life can't be known except by some... Perhaps this technique of Zen, of one marked samadhi. How are you and I and the Buddha really share the same nature?

[20:11]

Can't exactly be known. But we can hold this as a inner recognition. and even act and live through it, but we can't quite see how it's true, but we can feel it's true. So this is this perhaps semantic phrase, samadhi. A single word or a phrase which you hold, know, you intuitively know, you've come to know as true, but you can't exactly see it, but you can live it forwards. And I think, you know, what we need most and miss most is, excuse me for being simplistic, but authenticity.

[21:16]

to live according to the facts. That's what authentic means, according to the facts. Truly authored, perhaps. And it's very difficult to be authentic or to feel authenticity on most of our relationships with people. most of what we do to work in the world or act in the world. And I think that's why people turn to poetry or painting or something, not just partly, I think, because of the ecstasy or bliss that comes through making things when you truly do, but also because it may be the only way to really be authentic I mean to really be true to our emotions.

[22:19]

It's very difficult to really be true to our emotions. And Zazen and Zen practice and the Sangha is a way to move into this realm of being true to our emotions. Sakyurashi used to speak about Buddha nature is just our human nature, but being true to our human nature is Buddha nature. good, bad, or indifferent, to have the courage to be true to your human nature, our human nature. But what is this? We need this one mark samadhi, one mark of our nature, and Buddha's nature is the same. Human nature and Buddha nature is one mark. Sukhrishi emphasized that teaching comes after.

[23:25]

We don't study the teaching and then practice and then realize enlightenment. That's not the way of Zen. The way of Zen is practice and enlightenment must be one vision. And that practice and enlightenment as one act, one deep confidence in our true human nature. Then we study the teachings, and the teachings all come out from this. All the sutras come out from this. And in an early lecture he spoke about Yaoshan, or Japanese, Yakuson. Go on and show your road crew, I don't know, maybe number eight or four or five or something like that, an early one. But it's one of the stories he told a lot. And the director of the temple went to Yao Shan and said, you have not given a lecture for ages.

[24:36]

All the monks are asking if you would give a lecture. Okay, said Yoshaun, if you ask, of course. So he came in and he, as the story says, he ascended the high seat, generally the abbot of a temple. You know, like that seat we have in the middle? You have a great big one. And for Westerners, they really have to be big. They look out of proportion, you know? And put Ralph on one. The seat's not huge. Anyway, you have to have a big, it's normally a big Chinese seat, and it sits at the side of the tan. So actually the abbot sits in this, next to the tan, in this big chair. And that chair is also used for lectures. They're beautiful. When I used to practice at Daitoku-ji, the It was quite a great ritual at Taisho. Monks would all come in. They'd all be asleep.

[25:37]

We're much more alert. They'd all be asleep. But the teacher would come in and sit in this great chair. And there'd be one monk. So first he'd read the koan. I used to go quite often. Though it's a rather arcane Japanese, to say the least. But he'd read the koan. And then when he finished reading it, a monk would ring a bell and they'd give him a cup of tea. It was kind of matcha. It was kind of great, you know. You could do that for me if you want. In the middle of lecture. I mean, you fall asleep, I don't, see, because I need this cup of matcha in the middle of lecture. So this cup of matcha would be made. And it was always funny to see, because the monks would usually be completely asleep, but just at the right moment, they'd ring the bell. Quite impressive. You can sleep this way. It's okay. Almost okay. And then he would comment on the lecture, on the koan, and then he would leave.

[26:42]

Usually lasted 20 minutes. 30 minutes. Something like that. So anyway, they asked Yaoshan. So he took the high seat. He sat there for, I don't know, not too long. One minute, two minutes. And then he got down. And he went to his room. And the director went after him. Russell went after him. And said, but Yaoshan... You didn't utter a single word. And he said, there are teachers of scriptures and there are lecturers or something like that. But I am a Zen master. Do not acknowledge me. Now that's how Sukershi translates it or said it, but In the book, as Cleary translates it, it's, you know, there are lectures on treatises, there's lectures on sutras.

[27:52]

How can you, but how can you doubt this old man? He says. But Sukhirashi translates to this, how can you doubt this old man? He says, do not acknowledge me. But then Sukhirashi says, you know, but what he meant was acknowledge me. And so Sukershi said, when he first went to his teacher, you know, as a teenager, his father sent him, I have the pictures in Hotawan, photos, his father sent him to his disciple, Gyokujun, so on, who, I chant his name in the mornings, perhaps Rocio Keijo does too, Good old Gyokugin, who the book Zen Mind Begins Mind is dedicated to. And he presented this story to Suzuki Rishi as a boy, really.

[29:02]

And Suzuki Rishi didn't realize it at first, but this was the first problem his teacher gave him. Because Sukyurishi was a kid and he didn't really know how to, whether he accepted this guy or not as his teacher. And he was very different. Sukyurishi was kind of frail and a little sickly. And this guy was a big, powerful guy who, supposedly there were only two people in Japan who could string his bow. He was an archer. He had this bow which no one could string except one other person who took such... I wish I had the bow. I would see if Coco could string it. Or one of us, maybe. So he couldn't acknowledge his teacher for a while. And his teacher told him this story. So it worked in him. But when Suki Rishi first came to America in 61, 62, etc., he came in 59, but the first time he really started lecturing and teaching when I was with him was 61, 62, in there.

[30:22]

And he spoke often about your teacher as a Zen master and so forth. He never called himself a Zen master, but he clearly referred to himself in the context of being a Zen master. And he spoke about enlightenment quite often. And in later years he never did. He stopped entirely. And it was because Americans can't, they make too much of it. They turn it into some kind of status. Even I, I mean, right now, I mean, Sukershi asked me to be called Roshi. So I, but the way Roshi's used now and so many people want to be called Roshi, I'd like to get rid of it. I mean, I don't, I don't like it anymore. I mean, it's just I do it because Sukershi asked me to, but it's some kind of thing in people's heads, you know.

[31:23]

But anyway, How can I explain what it's a little bit like? I mean, we see things like this as a status, and in Japan it's seen as a function. So it's like saying, I'm a father. Maybe the greatest thing in the world to be a father. And my daughter's thinking so, I hope. But it's no big deal for anyone else. I'm a father. In some circumstances, I'm a father. That's all. And in some circumstances, I'm called Roshi. That's all. And it doesn't have any meaning. And when it's given meaning outside that, it's ridiculous. It's only in certain situations. And when Yojo Zenji met Dogen,

[32:30]

Nyojo said to Dogen, having you as my disciple is just the same as Buddha felt having Mahakasyapa as his disciple. Now, out of context in the way we hear these things, it sounds weird. But when you're emphasizing the relationship, the activity, it's not so weird. So I mean I suppose, I mean I know for some of you I'm a teacher, some of you I'm the teacher, some of you I'm a friend, perhaps for some of you I'm both, and for some of you I'm an anomaly, a person who says funny things and wears dresses.

[33:35]

But in any case, whatever it is, I'm doing my best, but it's not so good, actually, I'm afraid. I'm afraid, you know, I can... Well, I mean, I can teach you something. You know, I'm not a scholar, but I can teach you something about Buddhism. But what Buddhism is really about, I don't know if I'm such a good teacher. Not so good, I think. But also, it's hard for me to teach you what Buddhism is really about. I mean, I can teach you about the lamp, and perhaps lighting the lamp, But how to carry the triple gate on the lamp, I don't know if I can teach you. Partly it's not easy to teach, it's not teachable even, but I'm not such a good teacher.

[34:45]

And then how to nurture the flame, or how the flame is burning even when it's out, this is not so easy to teach. And it really can only be discovered by living together. So Sukershi said in this lecture in 1962, I'm 62, said, when Yojo said that to Dogen, we may take some umbrage because it sounds like he's trying to bind the disciple. Bind Dogen in some way.

[35:52]

But we just want to find this, what did I say the other day, sphere moment that includes two people or many people. Dogen said, when everyone you meet, young, old, stupid or wise, is your teacher, when everyone is your teacher or your master, young, wise, stupid or old, everyone you meet, when that is your mind, you will find your Zen teacher. So now, you know, compared to the 60s when people were quite against Buddhism, there was quite a lot of social... I was even on hit lists of sort of conservative Christian groups who would have a list of people who should be done in.

[36:58]

My name usually appeared, you know. Usually from the South somewhere I could... But there was a kind of... But now there's actually quite a possibility of careers in practice in Buddhism. And especially for women. There's more good women teachers nowadays than there's ever been probably in the history of Buddhism, at least publicly acknowledged in the society as a whole. So we have this problem together to create the conditions that allow one of us or a few of us not just to become ordained and transmitted or even to teach, but to carry on this lineage, to carry on Buddha's lineage.

[38:19]

So this is what Dogen was doing, and Nyojo, and Sukhiyoshi, and Yosha. By getting down from the seat, he was trying to create the possibility of someone continuing this lineage truly. Thank you very much. May our intention equally...

[38:56]

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